An identification system according to the present invention judges the identity between a number of reference works and only one work, from amongst works of art, crafts, antiques, jewels, such as pictures, photographs, block prints, pasted pictures, sculptures, statues, pots, earthenware, calligraphy, a created shape, object or shape formed by an artist, thereby making it possible to identify the creator of the work from the judgment result or search for the most similar work. In particular, attention is paid to the signature of the work, whereby precise judgment of the work's identity can be performed with the smallest amount necessary of digital data.
The present method for verifying a specific work of art or the author is mainly achieved by visual inspection, knowledge, or experience of an expert in the field, or by the creator themselves. Therefore, the author of the work sometimes cannot be identified preciously, or cannot be done so immediately. In addition, even if an attempt is made to identify a work, such an identification method is difficult to master, and is not obvious to everyone.
For example, assume that a photograph of a work “A” is included in a yearbook of arts & crafts. When a work “B” appears, the work “B” is photographed, and is compared with work “A” of the yearbook. If these works are identical to each other, the works “A” and “B” can be identified to be the same works, and the author of the work “B” can be identified to be the author of the work “A” in the yearbook.
However, even if the works “A” and “B” are identical, it is difficult to physically evaluate the photography methods and conditions of the works “A” and “B”. Thus, precise identification is difficult.
Examples of differences produced because of photography are shown below.
Example 1: As pigments in pictures of works degrade with the lapse of time, color fading or color changes may occur. When the same works are photographed at different times, a difference in color occurs.
Example 2: The change light of the photography conditions, caused by reflection or refraction. Even if the conditions such as atmospheric, light, color temperature, type of lenses used, relative position of a projection face relevant to the work, etc. are reproduced, a difference still occurs with the shape, area, and color of the photograph produced.
Therefore, even if the works “A” and “B” are identical to each other, when the photographic work “A” is compared simply with that of the work “B”, a differences exist between them, thus making it difficult to indicate the identicalness of works “A” and “B”.
In addition, at present, there is a database for searching for works with a character string such as work name or author's name defined as a key. However, in the case where a work is present at hand, but the work name or author's name is unknown, even if an extensive search is conducted the work name or author may not necessarily be found.
In such a conventional work identity judgment system, a more precise method of verification is requested irrespective of an inspection, knowledge or experience of an expert in the field, or the creator of the work.
In addition, if the work name or author's name is unknown, it is difficult to conduct a search for the work as no parameters are available.
In addition, at present, a number of digital images of works such as photographs are used, and the digital images are distributed via the Internet. However, no signature is attached to these distributed images in advance. No signature is inserted into and distributed to a position determined when digital images and digitized signatures are provided, and digital images are distributed.